AOR calls on PM to revise draft budget rectification or assume "predictable bankruptcy" of cities and towns

The Association of Romania's Towns and Cities (AOR) calls on Prime Minister Viorica Dancila to intervene for the revision of the draft ordinance regarding the 2019 state budget rectification or to "publicly assume the predictable bankruptcy" the cities and towns are heading towards, the association shows in a press release. 

According to the AOR, the mayors of cities, assembled in the meeting of the Association's Board of Directors, expressed their "indignation at the inconsistency of the promises made" by the representatives of the Ministry of Public Finance (MFP), which "shows a lack of understanding regarding the disastrous situation of the budgets" for more than half of the towns. 

"Given the crisis situation of the majority of towns' budgets, generated by the decrease of the revenues and, in particular, by the significant increases of the expenses, situation that by no means can be remedied through the measures proposed by the draft ordinance regarding the 2019 state budget rectification, presented on the website of the Ministry of Finance, with one desperate voice, the town mayors call on Romania's prime minister to publicly assume the predictable bankruptcy the administrative-territorial units (UATs) with town status are heading towards or to intervene energetically for the revision of the draft ordinance presented by the MFP," the AOR specifies. 

The association also requests support for a number of measures: 

- the amounts allocated by the 2019 state budget law or by the measures used in the rectification for any administrative-territorial unit not be diminished, the principle being the granting of additional amounts, to be published in the annex to the ordinance regarding the rectification, with mention of these amounts assigned to each commune, town, municipality and county; 

- the allocation upon the rectification of the amounts that represented revenues realized last year, taken into account, but which will not be realized in 2019, these representing a total of 282 million at the level of all the UATs. 

- the allocation for towns of amounts deducted from the VAT with a minimum limit, to ensure the functioning of the administrative-territorial units, including for the support of the organization and functioning of public institutions and services (high schools, hospitals, nurseries, computerized population register, social services institutions, local police, prosecutor's office and court, employment agency, financial administration and treasury etc.). In this regard, the AOR recalls that it has proposed, since the negotiations in February, the amount of 1,400 lei / inhabitant / per year; 

- the allocation to all the administrative-territorial units of the non-distributed amounts, representing the difference between the level of 60 percent and that of 41.75 percent of the quotas broken from the income tax estimated to be collected to the 2019 state budget, for the months of January, February and March. 

- the distribution of amounts to the administrative-territorial units, communes, towns and municipalities, by Government decision, based on the requests submitted by them, as a matter of priority for financing the expenses of the functioning section of the local budgets, in the following order: personnel costs, including the rights of the personal assistants of persons with severe disabilities, the monthly allowances of the persons with disabilities; goods and services for the maintenance of educational units and for those related to the child protection system and public centers for adults with disabilities at the county level; other types of urgent expenses needed in 2019.